Previous Lab Scientists
Siobhan M. Eze
Lead Research Specialist
Siobhan Eze minored in chemistry and received her BA in biology at the University of Great Falls in Montana in 2010. She then obtained her MS in cell and molecular biology at Appalachian State University in 2012. She joined Dr. Yang's research laboratory in 2015.
Hongyu Zhou, PhD
Surgical Oncology Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Zhou received his PhD in medicinal chemistry from Shandong University, China, in 2009. He was a postdoctoral researcher from 2009-2012 in the Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. He joined the Emory Surgical Oncology Nanomedicine Laboratory in 2012. His research concentrates on the development of novel nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems for targeted cancer therapy and imaging.
Ning Gao, MD
Surgical Oncology Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Gao received her MD degree in microbial and biochemical pharmaceutics at Peking Union Medical College, China, in 2011. She is engaged in preclinical studies of targeted theranostic nanoparticles with the goal of early clinical translation.
Erica Bozeman, PhD
Surgical Oncology Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Bozeman is a third year post-doctoral research fellow in the laboratory. Her primary research interests are the assessment of the immunological correlates of protection following targeted nanoparticle treatments in pancreatic and breast cancer models and the development of novel nanoparticles carrying immune modulators. Dr. Bozeman is the current recipient of multiple fellowships, including an NRSA F32 and UNCF/Merck and FACES post-doctoral science fellowships.
Jasmine Miller-Kleinhenz
Graduate Student
Jasmine Miller-Kleinhenz is a 5th year graduate student in the laboratory. She received her BS and MS at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before enrolling in the Cancer Biology PhD program at Emory University in 2011. Her principal research focus is elucidating mechanisms for drug resistance in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and defining the role cancer stem cells play in this resistance. She is also interested in developing novel nanoparticles to overcome drug resistance in TNBC. During the course of her PhD work she has received the William and Catherine Rice Endowed Research Award and an On Recent Discoveries by Emory Researchers (ORDER) Fellowship. She is also enrolled in the Med Into Grad Certificate Program in Translational Research of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Christina Ward
Graduate Student
Christina Ward joined the lab in 2013 and is currently a PhD candidate in cancer biology. Her research is concerned with identifying changes in macrophage amount, type, and location in the tumor microenvironment following nanoparticle treatment and whether these changes correlate with a therapeutic response.
Bridgette Peake
Graduate Student
Bridgette Peake is a PhD graduate student in Emory's Molecular Systems and Pharmacology program. She received her BS at Michigan State University in 2006 and her MS at Western Illinois University in 2010.
Eduardo Sanabria-Figueroa
Graduate Student
Eduardo Sanabria-Figueroa is also a PhD candidate in Emory's Molecular and Systems Pharmacology program. He obtained his BS at the University of Puerto Rico in Aguadilla in 2011.
Wei Chen
Graduate Student
Wei Chen is a visiting scholar and PhD student from Sun Yat-sen University in Southern China. He joined the Emory Surgical Oncology Nanomedicine Lab in 2014 for translational research training. His research interests include developing theranostic nanoparticles to deliver toxins, nucleotides, and peptides for cancer treatment. He also plans to investigate dissecting genomics for cancer classification, tumor biomarker identification, and personalized cancer therapy.
Zhiyang Zhou
Graduate Student
Zhiyang Zhou is a visiting student from China. In contribution to the lab's focus on targeted theranostic nanoparticles, Zhiyang is comparing the efficacy of different targeting ligands.